Abstract
Constructive alignment focuses on alignment between curriculum, learning outcomes, teaching activities, and assessment. This study argues that for lecturers to set intended learner-centred outcomes, they need insight into students’ prior knowledge of a discipline’s threshold concepts. Little is known about how a syllabus’s assumptions of prior knowledge match up to what first- year students know. Yet this insight is necessary; new knowledge is built on existing knowledge, and learning is about moving to higher cognitive levels. To gain this insight, at the start of the 2018 academic year, 292 first year biology students voluntarily answered two formative, online multiple-choice assessments on DNA and RNA synthesis. The responses showcased their knowledge gaps versus what the syllabus expected. Data analysis of their responses was used to shape teaching activities. This study extends constructive alignment by showing how quality teaching in content-dense disciplines such as biology further requires that lecturers gauge students’ prior knowledge.
Highlights
In South Africa there are differing levels of student preparedness for university, and factors external to the student can influence preparedness (Sobuwa and McKenna, 2019)
The main finding showed that students recalled content related to threshold concepts, they were rarely able to apply this knowledge when assessed at higher cognitive levels
It was evident that the expectations of prior knowledge as set out by the intended curriculum were a mismatch to the actual knowledge students possessed when they started the course
Summary
In South Africa there are differing levels of student preparedness for university, and factors external to the student can influence preparedness (Sobuwa and McKenna, 2019). First-year cohorts come from a range of school backgrounds and learning experiences, and this background experience is one external factor that could impact on preparedness (Dukhan, 2018). For quality teaching and learning to occur within university classrooms, there is a need for lecturers to be aware of gaps that might exist between first-year students’ prior knowledge, and the knowledge the prescribed syllabus presumes (Wang, et al, 2013). Constructive alignment (Biggs, 1996; Biggs and Tang, 2007) illustrates the intricate association between learning outcomes in the intended curriculum (or prescribed syllabus), teaching and learning activities, and assessment.
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